


Sensitive Knowledge

by ikkka



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Anxiety, Coming Out, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Third Person, Trans Character, Trans Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Trans Male Character, Vignette, Wholesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21892492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikkka/pseuds/ikkka
Summary: McCoy comes out to the last person he ever thought he'd come out to, let alone the first person he'd ever come out to on the Enterprise.Can be read as Spones, but I wrote it with the intention of their friendship being platonic.
Relationships: Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock, Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock
Comments: 17
Kudos: 112





	Sensitive Knowledge

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Mentions of non-explicit sex/sexual attraction, minor internalized transphobia.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> EDIT 01/03/2020: Changed the title, edited note.

McCoy, years ago, hadn't ever imagined that the first person aboard the Enterprise he'd tell his secret to would be the green-blooded hobgoblin he was at heads with everyday. Of course, his medical files stated his birth sex as female, in a small footnote that you'd have to look for to spot; but nobody looked at those unless McCoy, Kirk or Spock ordered it, and there had yet to be a situation where that was expressly needed.

Yet, McCoy felt like he was hiding pivotal information whenever the topic of sex, in any of its forms, came up. He could easily recall a conversation merely a few days ago, where Scotty had mused to him over a rec room table about his amorous adventures as a teenager. It was simple juvenile banter; something that literally anybody else--except Spock, because he doesn't know how to hold a proper conversation, let alone one about _petty human emotions_ \--could relate to and contribute to. Nevertheless, McCoy felt the hollowness burrow deep in his chest as Scotty detailed (maybe a little too _in-depth_ ) all the coitus McCoy wished he could've had in those years.

Another example came to mind of when Kirk, Scotty and himself were on Argelius II. The woman dancing was beautiful. He was entranced, Kirk was entranced, and Scotty was even more entranced than the two of them combined. It started off as a good night, before the whole murdering fiasco happened--just three men _being men_ together--and yet McCoy couldn't help but feel an edge of internal guilt around the brim of inclusion and stereotypical masculine bonding. That he wasn't a _real_ man, and that he didn't deserve to act and be treated like one.

He knew that that line of thinking was preposterous. McCoy knew all the scientific pieces and facts behind gender and incongruence for humans. He was a doctor, not a gender therapist, but his own condition and identity prompted him to research it and internalize all the knowledge he could get his hands on about it.

Now he was starting to sound like Spock. Wonderful. All this talk of _research_ and _knowledge_ is something Spock would say about literally anything that piqued his interest… but maybe that was it. Maybe that was the out McCoy needed. He wouldn't have to _explain_ it to him. Spock would already know; already have that weird, obscure, and frankly irrelevant knowledge crammed into the distant corners of his plomeek soup brain for him to withdrawal and blow the dust off of. Sexuality went right over Spock's head. Gender, McCoy thought, might shoot right smack into his hippocampus. He might _get it._

"I'm trans," McCoy had blurted out to Spock one evening. He was standing right beside him, helping him fold the absurd quantity of sickbay gowns that just came out of the sonic wash. His voice was shaky and uncertain, pairing nicely with how his hands struggled to cooperate with the folding. His eyes flickered up to him, and McCoy observed with bubbling, _irrational_ anxiety as Spock paused his gown folding. He was a Spock Statue for a meager second before looking down at him and asking,

"Why does this information concern me?"

The neutral response surprised McCoy. Spock's tone inferred no hate, no malice, nor even an unwillingness to hear what he said. McCoy wasn't exactly _expecting_ a bad response, but he wasn't exactly expecting a good one, either. He was at Spock's throat all the time, and Spock was at his likewise. He knew they didn't hate each other, as much as they verbally refused to acknowledge such. Spock saved his life countless times, and McCoy saved his. Their friendship was there, albeit very complicated, and McCoy thought maybe he just expected more… resistance. More bickering, less blind acceptance.

His brain sputtered while trying to think of an improv response to get out. He found he couldn't put into physical words.

"It… doesn't." McCoy finally settled on. After a long pause, and an unwavering, almost frozen Spock, he turned away and added, "Look, I-"

Spock grabbed McCoy's arm, grip firm yet gentle. McCoy shut up at the realization, and looked back up to find Spock's gaze burning a hole through his retinas. His stare was not judgemental, McCoy noted, and he swore it almost mirrored the same gaze he gave him back on Minara II; but the gaze was softer, almost _round_ if he could describe it abstractly, and held not worry or concern but… what exactly it held, McCoy couldn't read.

"… Thank you," Spock finally spoke, breaking the suffocating silence of the room, "for trusting me with this undoubtedly sensitive and _personal_ knowledge."

McCoy could, at the very least, appreciate how _logical_ Spock's response was. Spock simply didn't seem to care about the knowledge itself--just that McCoy had told him something personal one on one--and in an advanced world still full of primitive phobias, the smooth lack of thought past acknowledgement and a 'why did you tell me' that Spock gave him was comforting. McCoy was going to go about it more elegantly with the Captain, but with Spock's easy acceptance and Kirk's pure primal _hatred_ towards bigotry, he was confident that all would be well when the time came.

It felt weird to actually physically think to appreciate Spock's logic for once, but he was right as to how he read Spock initially; that Spock would _get it_ , wouldn't put any emotion into it, and if he wouldn't accept him, he wouldn't hold it against him, either. McCoy still despised the red desert elf with every fibre of his sarcastic being, but he knew that he was safe with him. That Spock was a good first choice, despite their complicated 'frenemy' status and their out-of-place rivalry.

McCoy, even just a year ago, couldn't ever imagine that the first person aboard the Enterprise he'd tell his secret to would be the green-blooded hobgoblin he was at heads with everyday; but he was glad that cruel, cold life could at least grant him that.


End file.
